"Are you saying," Bolan said, "that Bjornstrom's some kind of a mole, a sleeper? That both of you work for the Norwegian secret service?"
"Yes," Bjornstrom said.
14
"We go in twice," Bolan said. "Once to get an idea of the full layout, make a plan of the weak points and dope out guard routines; a second time to position the charges."
"Tonight?" Erika asked. "While there is still this fog?"
Bolan shook his head. "The fog helps us get close to the caves, but they stopped work already. No more whistles, no more blasting, no more compressors. I guess they don't dare work a graveyard shift in case it makes the locals curious. You wouldn't expect a normal prospecting crew, interested in mineral lodes, to work all night."
"But if nobody's there... Isn't this the best time to go in and?"
"No," Bolan cut in. "The place is too bright. There'll still be guards, in case strangers cruise in from the fjord. And intruders are easier to spot if there's nobody else around. Apart from that, the sentry we wasted will have been missed by now, so they'll be on double alert."
"But in that case..." Bjornstrom began.
"Look, when they're blasting, a whistle blows and the whole team make it to some kind of shelter, right? Between the signal and the blast there's a couple, sometimes three minutes, to allow everyone time to take cover. During that time we go in and find a place to hide. Next time they explode charges, we penetrate farther, make a preliminary recon. Same thing the following day when we place our own charges."
"It seems a big deal, wrecking the whole joint with the plastique we have," Bjornstrom said.
"Depends how we use it," the Executioner replied. "We got twelve detonators, a dozen timers and thirty-six sticks of C4. That means twelve charges of three sticks each, one charge of twenty-five sticks and eleven singles... or anything in between. We decide which once we've had a chance to size up the installations."
"We could arrange more but it would take time."
"Hell, no," Bolan said. "We'll make do with what we have. The important thing is to find the strategic places, where a relatively small charge will do the greatest damage. The judo technique."
Bjornstrom looked dubious.
"Turning your opponent's strength against himself," the Executioner explained. "Blow some moving part when the machinery is actually working, and it'll thresh about and do your work for you. A broken drive shaft can do a hell of a lot of damage far more than we could with a single stick."
"Okay," the Icelander said. "When do we go in, and how?"
"Tomorrow morning, early. And I reckon your traverse is the best way in for starters."
"But will there not be a guard or guards on that spur, like tonight?" Erika queried.
"Probably. Almost certainly. We'll have to neutralize them. That's why I want to use that way in first. The Russkies just might swallow one guy falling off a cliff and drowning, but not two or three. After that, you can bet they'd keep special watch on that particular chunk of rock. So our final visit will have to be underwater."
"In that case," Bjornstrom said, "let us hope the mist will not have lifted."
It was damp and cold at dawn. Patches of fog still lay across the calm surface of the fjord and veiled the cliff tops overhead.
The two guards on the spur had been carefully briefed.
"You must remember," the KGB colonel in charge of security had told them, "that this is not a military installation. We are on foreign ground. We have the right to keep people off this ridge. But a guard mounted army style is counterproductive it would raise suspicion locally. So you carry slug shotguns, not automatic weapons, and you are in plain clothes. You are examining the rocks, maybe looking for birds to shoot, not acting as sentries. Is that clear?"
Yuri Prokhorov had worked his way down almost to sea level. He had no wish to play soldier in this godforsaken hole anyway. He hated Iceland, he hated the cold, he hated guard duty, he hated the colonel and most of all he hated this specific mass of wet and chilly granite on this mother of a morning. If he was back home in the Georgian Republic of the U.S.S.R., on the marshes of the Rion Delta he really could be shooting birds. It would be warm and sunny, too, and the goddamn birds wouldn't need to migrate.
Suddenly a rowboat appeared out of the fog, nosing in to the spur. There were two big men in it, one blond and the other dark, wearing fishermen's sweaters, seaboots and peaked caps. The dark one stood and reached for a projecting ledge as the boat nudged the rock. He started to hoist himself ashore.
Prokhorov scrambled farther down toward the water level.
"You cannot land here," he said roughly. "This is private property."
"That's all right," the dark man said in Russian. "We won't do any damage. We only want to climb twenty feet or so, to that grassy shelf up there. It's a good place for the birds."
"You will be trespassing. You can't land here."
The stranger swung himself up easily until he stood beside the guard. His eyes were a piercing blue. "The ducks are flying south," he said, as if Prokhorov hadn't spoken. "We'll be all right here you can get a good shot across the water from this spur. They'll be coming in low today because of the fog."
"Get into your boat and go back!" the Russian shouted. "In any case the ducks don't..." He froze, staring down at the boat.
There were no guns in it.
He whirled, reaching for his own shotgun. An iron-hard fist slammed into his solar plexus, choking the breath from his lungs. He folded forward, his mouth open to shout a warning, but no sound forced its way past his savaged diaphragm. At the same time the dark man picked him up as easily as if he had been a child and dropped him over the edge into the fjord.
Bjornstrom was ready. The guard plunged into the water, arms flailing and throat gargling, six feet from the boat. Bjornstrom pushed off the rock face with two hands and slid the boat across the intervening space.
He was leaning over the gunwale as the Russian surfaced, still groaning for air. Bjornstrom placed both hands on the man's head and shoved him under again.
The rowboat rocked as the Russian submerged. Bolan stepped down into it and joined his companion.
Prokhorov came up for the second time. Before he could drag in a lungful of air, Bjornstrom leaned out once more and grabbed the back of his jacket. The Norwegian bunched the cloth in his fists and thrust hard down, holding the drowning man against the rowboat just beneath the surface.
The water swirled and frothed.
Bubbles burst. Bolan braced himself against the heaving boat as Bjornstrom rained the murderous pressure on the Russian's thrashing figure.
Gradually the frenzied struggles slackened. The bubbles ceased. For Yuri Prokhorov the marshes of the Rion Delta suddenly became very real. And the sun unbelievably bright.
On the far side of the spur, Mikhail Sujic heard the heavy splash when Prokhorov hit the water. He hurried around a shoulder of rock, unslinging his shotgun. The colonel had told them to be extra cautious. Andreyev's body had been found floating three miles away, and the colonel was not entirely convinced his death had been an accident. There were saboteurs around, and an American terrorist had been seen in the region.